


All I've Ever Known

by vintageAerith



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Bottoming from the Top, Canon Compliant, Drabble, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:07:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28644192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vintageAerith/pseuds/vintageAerith
Summary: Sometimes he thinks it would be easier to be blank and blissful like a Shade, to lose himself in rage like the fiends in Elysium, glad to push their immortality off the edge multiple times a day.Humans feared him the way he feared the want in the pit of his chest.[Canon-compliant] Shameless smutfluff expansion of the canon romance route.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 236





	All I've Ever Known

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluucircles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluucircles/gifts).



> All I've ever known is how to hold my own  
> But now I want to hold you, too
> 
> \--Anais Mitchell, Hadestown
> 
> First character study of Thanatos and Zagreus since I fell HARD into this OTP, oh my god. Literally what it says on the tin. These boys make me so happy.
> 
> One other quote/some vague references throughout to Hadestown lyrics. Comment if you spot them!

The first time Thanatos doesn’t slip immediately away, Zagreus isn’t ready for it.

Perhaps it’s a way of kidding himself, a meaningless little ritual he does every time he goes, like a good luck charm, like spinning three times to unjinx himself, like rapping his doorframe for good fortune before passing through it.

It was like a game for him. Catch him this time, it _had_ to be a good omen. Maybe he’d see past the surface this time. This time would have to be different.

This time was very different.

It’s nothing but a playful grab at the air, sometimes catching the edge of his tunic, sometimes connecting with the cold metal of his scythe, sometimes only setting his fingertips ablaze with the burning cold of death hanging in the air.

But instead of dropping Zagreus a furtive piece of contraband and running, he stays. Thanatos stays. His feet are brushing the grass, the closest to eye level he’s ever been.

And when Zagreus’ hand swipes at the air he should’ve left swirling behind him, he catches it in his own instead.

* * *

_Sometimes Nyx isn’t where he expects to find her._

_Thanatos has known for some time that Nyx had many children, Zagreus not among them. It was easier to lie by omission than it was to remove a semblance of guardian from him, even if his blood father remained stubbornly, steadfastly tied to him thus. Thanatos had to admit, the first time Zagreus had fled, that he might’ve done the same._

_Nyx, this time, was by the spot where he liked to observe the Styx, waiting for him._

_“Well, my child. He finally knows.”_

_He half-expects Zag to be torn-up and seething by the time he next finds him more than a day later, halfway through Asphodel, one flaming foot sliding into the magma, but he’s smiling, head whipping around to him as he hears him approach._

_Something about the way Zag runs to him so comfortably, so readily, only makes it easier for him to imagine how effortlessly he could brush him off. With that smile. With that voice._

_His mother is the reason he is the way he is, and the reason Zag is the way he is. He supposes he should be grateful for that. He feels his lip twitch._

_The same, but so very, very different._

_Sometimes he thinks it would be easier to be blank and blissful like a Shade, to lose himself in rage like the fiends in Elysium, glad to push their immortality off the edge multiple times a day._

_Humans feared him the way he feared the_ _want_ _in the pit of his chest._

* * *

_Dying felt different on the surface. It felt like sleep, a thick tongue, air like knives in his lungs, something threatening to split his skull--no matter how Persephone cushioned his fall, he would never get used to it._

_The third time he crumples in his mother’s green field, he waits for it, and it does not come._

_The faint glimmer of gilt in his bedroom ceiling, the distant sound of a lyre out of tune...he cranes his neck, head like an anvil, feeling the river trickling fresh out of his hair and down his shoulders. He’s resting on the small blue chaise near his mirror, one of the soft linen towels from the Great Hall thrown across him, feeling in every joint and muscle as though he’d been dropped from the heights of Olympus._

_After he ensures his head is no longer spinning, he sticks his head out into the great hall, startling a group of Shades nearby, but Nyx, standing among the rose vases, merely meets his eyes. Gives him that little half-smile. Shoos him back into his room with only the tips of her fingers._

_He didn’t come through the Styx this time. Carried, instead, by natural causes himself._

「 You won’t feel a thing, he said, when you go down. Nothing, nothing going to wake you now. 」

* * *

Than grips Zag’s hand, now slack as his mouth had gone, looking for all the world like a cat that had caught his own tail and hadn’t the slightest idea what to do now. It takes all of his composure not to crack a smile at that.

But Zagreus has other plans, and now Thanatos is faced with a smile in return, so genuinely glad, so open, so willing--

_If it’s any consolation, I...feel the same. I think._

He loosens his grip on Zag’s hand, already reaching behind himself to leave, but Zagreus catches both of his wrists, tugging him down in one smooth motion until--

Thanatos is gone before they collide. He trembles, unseeing, not sure where he landed and not sure he cares.

His hands feel hot, a scalding contrast to the cold he musters to try to remember how to breathe.

* * *

It is alone, the chatter of the House a comfortable cover, with not a soul in the west hall to see them, when it happens.

Zagreus knows before he even rounds the corner how he’ll find him: arms bound so tightly across the barrel of his chest that he felt he was being dared to pry them away from him, staring intently at squarely nothing, shoulders nearly to his ears in tension.

It was like he was always neglecting something, that he couldn’t relax for even a _moment_ , and it tugs at something in Zag’s ribcage to see.

He doesn’t greet him as he approaches the overlook, feeling the thrumming tension of Than’s eyes on him as he nonchalantly props himself up, throwing an ankle behind the other, lacing his fingers and resting his elbows on the handrail, looking out over the river, and he waits.

He doesn’t even jump when, some time later, Thanatos is mirroring him, arms unfolded and resting instead on the railing, his breath hitching as he lets his feet touch the floor. The marble is cold. Zagreus thinks to himself that a new rug here may be in order.

Their elbows are not touching when they settle, but before long they are shoulder to shoulder, exchanging warmth, staring obstinately out at the Styx, at the glow of the windows in the distance. It is a dance they both know and no one wants to lead.

The knuckles of their smallest fingers brush, tap, in a pattern, asking a question. Zagreus unlaces his fingers to offer a palm. He isn’t sure how else to prove to him, _he wants this too._

Thanatos takes it.

They are in the most awkward possible positioning, but it does not stop their lips coming suddenly together, the tips of their noses turning white as they press closer. It lasts only seconds, and Zagreus reaches up to palm Than’s cheek, backhanded, fingers threading back into his hair--

* * *

It feels right, feels _healing_ , somehow, that they fall into bed with laughter rather than with sighing.

Zag is fumbling somewhere below his ear, and whether he’s doing it right is the furthest thing from Than’s mind--it tickles, it makes his toes curl, and he laughs despite himself, busying his own hands with memorizing every soft divot on his back as he hovers over him.

Zagreus keeps at it a little longer, finally drawing a gasp when he scrapes his teeth along his jawline, pulls back to admire the mess he’s about to make of him.

“You have nowhere to be?” he asks. That smile, but a little lift to his brow.

Thanatos sits up, cups his face, places the gentlest of kisses squarely on Zag’s open mouth, and feels the shudder as Zag melts, covering his hands with his own to hold him there.

Than lingers, tilting left for a moment, then right, feeling Zag’s bravado lose momentum, feeling the pulse under his fingers, less frenetic. Stays there, content only to explore his mouth with his own, until Zag is quite satisfied he isn’t leaving this bed anytime soon, and his own intent to stay is beginning to strain and harden beneath his disheveled linens.

The breath he’s holding escapes in a long hiss as Zagreus pushes him down, kisses down his bare torso, still glistening in the red light with some sort of oil he’d taken from his bedside as they’d come in, spreading it and warming it over his chest and his shoulders as they’d tried every possible approach to a kiss, like clearing the last one from their minds to feel the thrill of the very first one all over again. He feels Zagreus hum appreciatively against his navel when his hand tentatively cards through his dark hair; feels it in his gut, in his spine.

Zag has already worked the fabric of Than’s tunic up and away from his knees, up, up, until he drapes it around his own shoulders like a mantle, grinning a little up at him, wrapping his hand around his base, with everything out of his way.

He seems to take pause as he catches Thanatos’ expression, watching him apprehensively, as hesitant to take _this_ from him as he was any small bottle he was handed a mere two rooms away, what seemed a lifetime ago.

“Will you let me?”

It’s laid so bare, so willing, that it undoes him completely, and he mutely nods.

Thanatos feels his throat catch as Zagreus envelops him into his mouth in one long, agonizingly slow motion; he’s seeing stars in the darkened bedchamber ceiling, suddenly needing to anchor himself to the sheets with both fists, and he lets his breath escape only when he’s sure he will not shout.

Zag seems both gratified and impatient with that, and makes a show of pulling his lips off the tip of his cock, and with his free hand, replaces Than’s hand on the crown of his head.

“Good,” he rumbles, when Thanatos threads his fingers in again, settling in as gentle a grip as he could with Zagreus already taking him into his mouth a second time.

Thanatos gently rolls his hips surfaceward as Zagreus works down, further _down,_ making a wet _pop_ here and there as Than feels himself grow even harder; he tugs his hair a little left as Zagreus finds a particularly sensitive spot, and feels his _hum_ in his cock before he hears it. He’s going to sink into the Styx right here and now, he thinks, as Zagreus grows bolder, groaning around him, dragging his tongue, dragging his teeth, gentle as his kiss, but unrelenting in its hold.

Thanatos begs the air in his lungs not to betray him as he works himself up higher, higher, scarcely daring to breathe as he tightens his grip in Zag’s hair, certain it’s going to tear his moan from his throat--

He looks down just in time to watch Zagreus’ free hand fly to his own cock, too far down the bed to see, but he can _guess_ from the look on his face; so worked up from ravishing _him_ that he’s nearly as far gone. The sight makes Thanatos groan, and it in turn makes Zag choke a sound out around him, and they meet each other’s eyes just as Zag does something that blows the roof off the pressure building in his abdomen, and he comes, arching hard into Zag’s mouth and flinging one arm over his own face, biting hard into his forearm to keep from moaning into the rafters.

Zagreus slides off of him with a wet _pop_ , pressing a kiss to the tip of him, and crawls up over him, flushed at the sight of him utterly spent, and Thanatos pulls him down for a lazy, languid kiss, hands scrabbling to feel for himself how _hard_ Zag had gotten, and he groans into his mouth when he finds the bead of moisture at the tip and spreads it around with one thumb, tastes himself on those lips.

Zag seems quite content to be pressed back against the pillows as Than flips the two of them, covering his body with his own, bracing his arms above Zag’s head so he can admire him, bending down for another kiss, as Zag reaches to tuck his hair behind one ear, laughing a little as the long white strands slip right back out, tickling him on the forehead as he hovers over him.

Not content to be outdone, Thanatos reaches with one hand toward the bedside to find what he needs there, peppering kisses on Zag’s jawline, and reaches to ready himself as he feels Zag settle beneath him.

“Are you sure?” Zagreus manages, just as Thanatos bites back a gasp, pressing into himself with two long fingers, then three.

“I can stay long enough,” he replies, low, almost a gravel, “for you to outdo me by one.”

Zagreus laughs, the subtle rib not lost on him, and it dissolves into a sigh in staccato as Than begins to bear down on him, taking him in, careful and slow--his cock is _warm_ , nigh scalding, and he pauses for air as he adjusts himself from the relative cool of the air on his bare skin, already beginning to be long gone in the warmth of the bedchamber’s torches.

Thanatos leans back, propping himself on one hand, closing his eyes and biting his lip before he dares move, like he’s tasting wine, like no sight or sound should be allowed to interrupt the feeling of Zagreus deep inside him--and he rolls his hips.

He hears Zag allow himself a low _mmmm_ as he begins, then another, more urgent, as Than tenses to bring himself up a small measure, then sinks down onto him further. He feels Zag’s hands on the tops of his thighs, sliding until he finds a comfortable grip, his fingertips pressing into him in a way he feels immediately in his own center, feeling himself twitch a little, eager to join in this round--but they could attend to that later.

He works Zagreus into him as far as he can manage, and he feels a smile crack despite himself, so utterly full of him and around him and held by him and--he looks down at Zagreus, trying desperately to keep his gaze on him as his long lashes flutter, eyes rolling back in his skull as he rides him faster, then slower, then even faster, watching the way his throat bobs and the way he tosses his head, gifting him a full view of the lines of his jaw, of his collarbone, to know when he’s doing it right--

He knows it won’t last as long as he did, with just how much Zagreus had enjoyed pulling a peak out of him, and watches as his eyes fly open-- _"Than,”_ he moans, “ _Than--!_ ”--as he relinquishes his anchor on both his thighs and pulls Thanatos down to him, crushing their mouths together as he pants, harshly, bucking up into him, all restraint abandoned as he finds the spot that makes Thanatos groan just as hard into his kiss--two, three more thrusts and he flings his head back, one loud shout before he bites his lip and whimpers, coming hard and deep.

Than pulls back to watch him slowly come down, bends to kiss his forehead, places a hand over his heaving chest, feeling the warmth spilled inside him slowly descend and fill the spaces left.

When Zag’s eyes flutter open, it’s with a slack-jawed smile that he comes back to this plane, and Than wonders, truly, when the heat will stop rushing to his face. Surely he should be ages past this now, as he gently swivels his hips to feel Zag still deep inside him, soft, but still with a scalding warmth that has made its way all the way up into his face now.

 _God of Blood, indeed_ , he thinks, as Zag reaches up to softly thumb across his cheekbone, feeling for himself what he’d done to him.

“There,” he says, “A step closer to even, I would say.”

Zag laughs, a little hoarsely, still out of breath.

Than carefully slips off him, draping himself over Zag, pulling him with him until they are laying facing each other on their sides, hooking a leg behind his knees to hold him closer. Zag wastes no time filling every space he leaves, breathing in salt and sweat at his collarbone, resting his forehead against him so that Than merely needs to talk to leave a semblance of a kiss there, and he rumbles a reply into the calm.

“May we never call it won.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments. Thank you so, so much for reading!


End file.
